


Caim

by tomatocages (kittu9)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Buildings, Community: 31_days, Gen, POV Inanimate Object, Walls have ears, War Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-06
Updated: 2011-08-06
Packaged: 2017-10-22 07:29:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/235502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittu9/pseuds/tomatocages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hogwarts: A Life</p><p>Written for the 31-Days prompt "Hogwarts, A Life" (September 6th, 2005)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Caim

**Author's Note:**

> Caim: Gaelic, noun: a sanctuary or protection drawn about the body (symbolic).

The castle was, of course, very old. More than half of the school's grandeur and mystique would have been lost if the architecture had been otherwise. Besides, one cannot teach a thousand odd under-age wizards how to control their magic if one is always half-worried that the building is not durable enough to withstand a few misplaced enchantments.

(It is a little known fact that the curse, enchantment, and briar wall surrounding the castle and subjects of a certain kingdom was the result of one such assignment gone awry. The prince who saved the day was actually a professor and the princess was a student who had rather foolishly agreed to help a friend with her homework. There were no kisses, but there were several detentions, one of which involved heavy pruning of the wall of roses.)

What one tended to forget, even in the magical world, was that often, buildings developed minds of their own. How one managed to ignore this when the very structure of Hogwarts Castle moved about at will has not been ascertained, but it is sufficient to assume that after a life lived with magic (and this, compounded into thousands of lifetimes, all viciously and beautifully potent, and kept very brightly within the castle walls) no one really noticed that the castle and grounds was alive itself. Watching.

***

The headmasters knew, of course. Or if they didn't _know_ then at least they had warnings, or the stairs would work for them marginally better than they might have otherwise, or something—something small, because if even the headmaster had forgotten, the castle really couldn't be held responsible for his carelessness.

Students reading their history texts sometimes found that magic-related deaths sounded a bit odd, or fantastic, or stupid. Really, they oughtn't to have been surprised. Even the most pathetic student knew what the school motto said; it wasn't Gryffindor's fault (for he had come up with the phrase, even if Ravenclaw had been the one who had figured out the proper case and translated it) that no one realized the significance.

Hogwarts _is_ a dragon. And beneath the foundation, a creature occasionally forgets what is good for it, and tickles (or, as certain instructors are wont to put it, rather less elegantly: someone is pressing their luck.).

***

The idea for the school was conceived much like a child; and the ideas flowed within the womb of a woman and nourished the fetus, perhaps a little more than the placenta did.

What everyone forgets (and what the British Ministry would really rather _stayed_ forgot about, on the whole) is that magic has far more to do with sex and death than is has to do with wands and rules and incantations. There was a reason so many spells call for young virgins, or for hair or spittle or a man’s last breath; there was power in the body, and the blood carried it..

In a way, the sacrifices maintain the life of the building come year after year; young bodies and fertile minds, imaginations, those malleable infants. Eleven years old means nothing to a fortress that has stood throughout the ages. Eleven years old is when the magic starts, when human bodies and minds begin that mad, headlong rush into adulthood. Things start changing and the magic becomes real.

The castle feeds off of the emotions and it is far more pleasant than a Dementor. It cultivates life, is a connoisseur; the children are tender young crops. Hogwarts does not harvest; it gleans.

***

Some of these humans (the heads of matches, flaring passionately to life, such fumbling little creatures) stand out more than others do. These careful few are like oil-lamps, steadier in their brightness; Riddle is one such character and the school becomes smaller during his rule, as if he has glimpsed its deeper nature and approves. Or if he does not approve, he can at least see things through to his own ends.

He creates the room first, and it _hurts_ ; the castle is not used to obeying others now, not so long after the Four imprinted their fingers and spells and sweat into its bricks, and Riddle's touch is alien, too sure, too calculated, too ruthless for comfort or easy obedience. The only thing that secures his victory is that voice, lambent, curling around the fuzzy consciousness of the stone and hollowing out the center of a room long since forgotten (and it was forgotten for a reason, but of course no one ever considers that sort of thing when they are trying to take over the world, a little at a time).

The stain of his presence remains deep within and whenever the castle encounters it, the walls quiver just the barest hint; even a fortress can be sickened, and the creature rotting inside the great walls has gone mad. The sickness spreads, and the stairways and secret passages are ever after a little more unpredictable in that wing of the building.

***

There are others, of course; but nothing that is quite fantastic enough for the foundations to accept as a kindred spirit.

The castle lies within itself for many years, the dragon of its center awake and watchful. Outside the walls, a war is going on, and the wounded and the echoes of malice are starting to trickle inside. Still, it's safe enough at Hogwarts, safe especially with Dumbledore about; he has a special connection with the building and they speak often, he in his muttering, nonsense-and-valor tone of voice and the stonework weeping its answers at him through the condensation gathering on the dungeon walls.

The man is mad, people say. The castle is a little strange too, when it comes down to it, and they understand each other almost perfectly. Occasionally the subtexts become a little muddled and the soul of Hogwarts haunts his office like a hopeful ghost, anticipating a human touch upon the walls again, a touch intent on fixing that strange echo of ill-use Riddle left behind. Dumbledore is, alas, not quite as proficient in the language of structures as one would hope. He translates the castle's message, incorrectly, as a wish for the ceiling of the Great Hall to be admired.

The attention is nice, of course. Every night, before going on the next stage of his myriad plans, Dumbledore wanders into the deserted hall and stares at the bewitched ceiling for several long moments, idly stroking the stones of the Hall with one hand; he remembers, a little, what he loved so about the school when he was a student. The walls stretch high above his silvered head as though, despite the view the ceiling offers to the outside world, the school is keeping its inhabitants caged in, safe from the war outside.

***

The year after the Potter boy arrives (and everywhere, every character is prattling on about him, although the castle cannot quite fathom _why_. It has no real grasp of destiny other than the sheltering of the lives within it), Hogwarts discovers the student it has been waiting for, unknowingly, throughout the centuries.

Luna Lovegood is a strange and silver sort of creature, dreamy and soft around the edges—the castle, if it had a sense of humor, would find this funny or perhaps ironic, as Lovegood is in Ravenclaw's House and Ravenclaw's magic has left a terribly pragmatic streak within the foundations.

Lovegood talks to the castle immediately upon her arrival and is not surprised in the least when the castle answers back, in its own fashion. While one of Lovegood's yearmates is being possessed by the shadows Riddle left behind (his faint presence makes the school feel twitchier than ever), Lovegood herself finds herself in empty classrooms, conversing affably with the unadorned walls.

The patterns in the condensation make quite a lot of sense to her; it's a pity that Dumbledore will never quite notice the girl's potential, but, the castle thinks, it’s not the first time the headmaster has demonstrated his shortsightedness.

Often, caught up in her conversations with the castle, Lovegood is late to class. Her marks do not show this; her professors never seem to notice if she is present or not.

The school loves her, and when Luna Lovegood's seven years in its fairyland have elapsed, she will never quite be able to disengage her being from the walls and foundations of Hogwarts, even when she has gone very far away. But before then, there will be another war and already the world within has been shaken.

***

Hogwarts cries out when Dumbledore is struck down, and it draws upon the reservoir of life that has been sheltered within it for so long to retaliate. Lovegood, as its interpreter, is an unfit vessel for such power; instead the energy is shot through the Potter boy (who is so open that the school can feel, with devastating intensity, his desire to make things _right._ Belatedly, it remembers that it was Potter who healed the wound Riddle left behind, it is Potter who is irrevocably focused on destroying Riddle's mark on the children of Hogwarts. The school feels validated for allowing his safe passage through its halls during the past six years).

The battle is joined and the dragon beneath the foundation, in the innermost heart (Hogwarts is more than bricks and magic an accumulated life, after so much time) is awake, roaring.

***

(A pause, before the storm breaks—if indeed it has not already broken—and the castle shudders to itself, anxious. There is a little time left before Life As Hogwarts Knows It will cease; the last summer has begun, the exodus is complete. The new headmistress is walking into the Great Hall, disconsolate. She is very pragmatic, but more than that; she is courageous as well, and determined. She does not know how to speak to the school, but Hogwarts is a patient building. There is a war coming, and a castle can be a fortress as easily as it can be a school and there will be time enough for learning later. Now, it is enough to stay alive.)

The life is trickling out of the dormitories, slowly; the school does not need the continuous and edgy lifestyles of the magically inclined young within it, but it loves them. It is a very old building—one might say that it is set in its ways—and Hufflepuff's imprint upon its mortar is strong with compassion. There is patience left within the walls, and a strange pall; the new headmistress weeps alone in the dungeon, quietly, one hand on the damp walls. The school reaches back to her, but the two of them cannot communicate. Instead they mourn together in their separateness, appearing to all who see them as immovable objects against all odds. This, like most assumptions, is untrue.

***

Hogwarts, the school, doesn't know the meaning of hope—but then it has no concept of despair either; it only understands these trivial, human things after many years of stately observation. Hundreds of things affect the building like this, and among them all, now, as time falls closer and closer to the last, remorseful day, all the building can muster is a feeling of the bittersweet. The stones are shrouded with so much that the foundations of the school cannot comprehend, or react to. It has been alive for a very long time, and cannot comprehend not existing.

**Author's Note:**

> Written, clearly, in 2005, though minor edits were put in place in August 2011. I chose not to change my assumption that McGonnegal would assume the role of headmistress. Also, I think this story reflects my OTP of Luna/Buildings. (It is difficult to articulate how much I adore Luna.)


End file.
